________________________________________________
_ SATIRES.
EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.
ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS EPISTLE.
This Paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and
drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts
of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the
authors of "Verses to the Imitator of Horace," and of an "Epistle to a
Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court") to attack, in a very
extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the
public is judge), but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who
know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between
the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake
so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to
this Epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am
most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything
offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious
or the ungenerous.
Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but
what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they
may escape being laughed at if they please.
I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned
and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of
theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and
honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be
directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a
nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.--
P. _
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